Change the appearance of your desktop

You can change the look of things that appear on the screen by setting the style preference to light or dark. You can choose an image or wallpaper as your desktop background.

Light or Dark Style

To switch between light and dark desktop styles:

  1. Open the Activities overview and start typing Appearance.

  2. Click Appearance to open the panel. The currently selected style is shown at the top surrounded by a blue border.

  3. Click to choose Light or Dark.

  4. The setting is applied immediately.

Background

To change the image used for your background:

  1. Open the Activities overview and start typing Appearance.

  2. Click Appearance to open the panel. The currently selected wallpaper is shown at the top in the preview for the current style.

  3. There are two ways to change the image used for your backgrounds:

    • Click one of the background images which are shipped with the system.

      Some wallpapers change throughout the day. These wallpapers have a small clock icon in the bottom-right corner.

    • Click Add Picture… to use one of your own photos. By default, the Pictures folder will be opened, since most photo management applications store photos there.

  4. The settings are applied immediately.

    For another way to set one of your own photos as the background, right-click on the image file in Files and select Set as Wallpaper, or open the image file in Image Viewer, click the menu button in the titlebar and select Set as Wallpaper.

  5. Switch to an empty workspace to view your entire desktop.